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Mrs Eccles said: “She brought it back and said ‘I have just found this’. My husband took it to the swimming baths and they said we needed to take it to the police or tell the council.”

The pipe did not have any cannabis in it, although there was still ash in the bowl.

Mrs Eccles, of Trafalgar Court, Dalton, said she regularly visited the playground and was concerned by the amount of rubbish littering the site.

She said: “We still go, but we are just more wary of stuff like that, we just have to keep an eye out for that stuff.”

Amanda Gavin, Katie’s aunt, who was in the park with her five children at the same time, said she and her family visited it most days.

She said: “It’s not nice for a five-year-old to find stuff like that, especially when in the summer months, it is supposed to be a quiet place for kids to play.”

She complained about the amount of rubbish, including beer bottles and cigarette packets left around the site by teenagers who congregated there in the evenings.

In January, the Evening Mail reported Dalton boy Ryan Fagan’s stomach was slashed open when he fell on broken beer bottles while playing tig around the multi-use games area next to the leisure centre.

Keith Johnson, assistant director for community services for Barrow Borough Council, said the park was regularly cleaned by council staff.

He said he would speak to the local police to ask if they could increase patrols around the playground, and added: “Most people would recognise that children have to have somewhere to play and, what comes with that, is that they should do it in a responsible way, and behaviour like that is unacceptable.

“The playground is cleaned on a regular basis and beyond that, are we going to put a 12ft fence around the playground to keep the children out? But those who are there have to use it in a responsible manner.”

Have your say

haha "gangs of over a 100 people" bit over reaction. there is never that many people there and we are mates not gangs

Posted by j on
4 July 2012 at 00:00

My child sarah age 4 and my niece 5 do also play on that park.You should not expect to be looking out for things like that.This am as a was with my 4 yr old on willie horne gardens in Barrow as per usual broken glass on path.my child is special needs which makes it more dangerous for her.